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This is still great news in terms of Bitcoin adoption, however. I can now spend my Bitcoin on more things than I could before this announcement. The more merch

This is still great news in terms of Bitcoin adoption, however. I can now spend my Bitcoin on more things than I could before this announcement. The more merchants that follow suit, the better. Eventually there may be no need for Coinbase if a majority of merchants accepted Bitcoin.

JohnTHaller 13y ago
Except for the whole "you have no recourse as a consumer since there are no chargebacks" thing. And no, the better business bureau, ratings websites, etc don't count.
- javert 13y ago
  You can build services atop bitcoin that allow for chargebacks. This is yet another attempt to hand-wave off bitcoin without thinking.
  - JohnTHaller 13y ago
    Right, a middleman service that could operate much like Coinbase, PayPal, credit cards, etc. Which you don't have access to if you are DIRECTLY making bitcoin payments from customer to merchant. Which is what the comment I was responding to was advocating. Hence my reply that you would lose the ability to to do chargebacks in that specific scenario.
    - javert 13y ago
      Sure, but it is a lot easier for companies to proliferate and compete in the space we are talking about, than in the credit card/PayPal type arena. It's a simpler business to run with less regulatory capture and old-boys-club effects. Plus, bitcoin gives customers the OPTION to not be able to do charge-backs (99% of the time you know you don't need it); that saves money for the merchants, which can be passed on to consumers.
    - zanny 13y ago
      > Which you don't have access to if you are DIRECTLY making bitcoin payments from customer to merchant. Sounds like how I can't chargeback dollar bills I use for a money order. I don't imagine it will ever get to the point where people perform financial transactions with bitcoin using raw addresses. They will probably always use third party services like coinbase, which has a fractional commission, for the security, both in having a remote wallet (ie, bank) and providing chargebacks.
      - JohnTHaller 13y ago
        Right. That's one reason I'd never make a purchase from a site that requires a money order.
        Anderkent 13y ago
        But the converse is also true, which is why I'd never sell anything to someone who wants to pay by paypal.
- GigabyteCoin 13y ago
  What does that have to do with the fact that Overstock.com accepting Bitcoin is literally increasing Bitcoin adoption and making more items available for purchase via Bitcoin, prompting other companies to follow suit? Presumably Overstock.com is a reputable company, and they would honor their guarantees, so I would feel safe sending them Bitcoin. I wouldn't give my credit card information out to some untrusted third party that I was unsure of their sending me the products. Just because the credit card industry has created a massive protection racket in North America doesn't mean it must continue to exist. There are plenty of business' who cannot take credit card purchases because of possible chargebacks.
  - JohnTHaller 13y ago
    We make all sorts of purchases from smaller merchants because we know they can't just take the money and run when we pay via credit card. I do it all the time. That way I don't have to just buy from Overstock.com or Amazon.com, but all kinds of merchants. I don't have to implicitly trust that a merchant will deliver the goods to me on time and in the fashion they say they will. I know they will or I can initiate a chargeback. And as far as "Presumably Overstock.com is a reputable company, and they would honor their guarantees"... I don't have to presume anything. I know I can get my money back if they fail to deliver. I had to do this recently with a site that I expected would be reliable. One that I'd enjoyed the free services of for the past 5 years and had no problem placing a $40 order to download some premium content from. They never bothered to deliver it and wouldn't respond to email, voicemail or twitter. So, I initiated a dispute via PayPal and got my money back. If I'd paid with bitcoin, I couldn't get my money back. I run my own small business, have worked with many other small businesses, and have friends running all kinds of other small businesses. I don't know of ANY legitimate business that "cannot take credit card purchases because of possible chargebacks".
    - whywhywhy5 13y ago
      Isn't trusting your credit card number to small business you consider unreliable just as bad or worse than the alternative?
    - 13y ago
- woah 13y ago
  you've only had this kind of recourse for the past 50 years. before that, for 5-10,000 years, money in all its forms worked just like bitcoin.
  - knowaveragejoe 13y ago
    You've only had the range of goods you can buy today in the past 50 years(or less), made possible in large part by that very sort of mechanism.
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > you've only had this kind of recourse for the past 50 years. before that, for 5-10,000 years, money in all its forms worked just like bitcoin. To the extent its true (and, actually, money in most of its other historical forms doesn't work much like bitcoin, but yes there wasn't a widely used convenient equivalent to modern payment dispute resolution systems before credit cards), like computers and modern dentistry and all kinds of other modern developments, its not one of those things I'd like to give up having to go back to the way things used to work.
    - stevedekorte 13y ago
      Can we safely assume you never use physical cash because it doesn't support "charge backs"? Also, what do you say to the populations of the ~40 countries that credit cards don't work in because charge back requests are too common there? Do you tell them to simply never make online purchases?
  - JohnTHaller 13y ago
    But it worked in person. Not over the internet to someone you will never meet in a state/country you will never visit.
  - Nursie 13y ago
    And for how long have we had distance selling? In particular over the internet?
Gormo 13y ago
Whether it's good news or not depends on what your hopes for Bitcoin are. If you'd like to have an open and decentralized protocol for direct cash transactions in online commerce, then this is indeed fantastic news. But if what you want from Bitcoin is a standalone currency that's immune to political manipulation, it's not such great news: in this and other similar recent stories, Bitcoin is being used merely as a proxy for dollar transactions. If this type of transaction ended up becoming dominant, Bitcoin would effectively be pegged to the dollar, nullifying its advantages as a non-fiat currency. For Bitcoin to work as a standalone currency, there has to be a real economy with prices denominated in Bitcoin, not just a dollar-denominated economy with an instant spot exchange built into transactions.

JohnTHaller 13y ago

Except for the whole "you have no recourse as a consumer since there are no chargebacks" thing. And no, the better business bureau, ratings websites, etc don't count.

javert 13y ago
You can build services atop bitcoin that allow for chargebacks. This is yet another attempt to hand-wave off bitcoin without thinking.
- JohnTHaller 13y ago
  Right, a middleman service that could operate much like Coinbase, PayPal, credit cards, etc. Which you don't have access to if you are DIRECTLY making bitcoin payments from customer to merchant. Which is what the comment I was responding to was advocating. Hence my reply that you would lose the ability to to do chargebacks in that specific scenario.
  - javert 13y ago
    Sure, but it is a lot easier for companies to proliferate and compete in the space we are talking about, than in the credit card/PayPal type arena. It's a simpler business to run with less regulatory capture and old-boys-club effects. Plus, bitcoin gives customers the OPTION to not be able to do charge-backs (99% of the time you know you don't need it); that saves money for the merchants, which can be passed on to consumers.
  - zanny 13y ago
    > Which you don't have access to if you are DIRECTLY making bitcoin payments from customer to merchant. Sounds like how I can't chargeback dollar bills I use for a money order. I don't imagine it will ever get to the point where people perform financial transactions with bitcoin using raw addresses. They will probably always use third party services like coinbase, which has a fractional commission, for the security, both in having a remote wallet (ie, bank) and providing chargebacks.
    - JohnTHaller 13y ago
      Right. That's one reason I'd never make a purchase from a site that requires a money order.
      - Anderkent 13y ago
        But the converse is also true, which is why I'd never sell anything to someone who wants to pay by paypal.
GigabyteCoin 13y ago
What does that have to do with the fact that Overstock.com accepting Bitcoin is literally increasing Bitcoin adoption and making more items available for purchase via Bitcoin, prompting other companies to follow suit? Presumably Overstock.com is a reputable company, and they would honor their guarantees, so I would feel safe sending them Bitcoin. I wouldn't give my credit card information out to some untrusted third party that I was unsure of their sending me the products. Just because the credit card industry has created a massive protection racket in North America doesn't mean it must continue to exist. There are plenty of business' who cannot take credit card purchases because of possible chargebacks.
- JohnTHaller 13y ago
  We make all sorts of purchases from smaller merchants because we know they can't just take the money and run when we pay via credit card. I do it all the time. That way I don't have to just buy from Overstock.com or Amazon.com, but all kinds of merchants. I don't have to implicitly trust that a merchant will deliver the goods to me on time and in the fashion they say they will. I know they will or I can initiate a chargeback. And as far as "Presumably Overstock.com is a reputable company, and they would honor their guarantees"... I don't have to presume anything. I know I can get my money back if they fail to deliver. I had to do this recently with a site that I expected would be reliable. One that I'd enjoyed the free services of for the past 5 years and had no problem placing a $40 order to download some premium content from. They never bothered to deliver it and wouldn't respond to email, voicemail or twitter. So, I initiated a dispute via PayPal and got my money back. If I'd paid with bitcoin, I couldn't get my money back. I run my own small business, have worked with many other small businesses, and have friends running all kinds of other small businesses. I don't know of ANY legitimate business that "cannot take credit card purchases because of possible chargebacks".
  - whywhywhy5 13y ago
    Isn't trusting your credit card number to small business you consider unreliable just as bad or worse than the alternative?
  - 13y ago
woah 13y ago
you've only had this kind of recourse for the past 50 years. before that, for 5-10,000 years, money in all its forms worked just like bitcoin.
- knowaveragejoe 13y ago
  You've only had the range of goods you can buy today in the past 50 years(or less), made possible in large part by that very sort of mechanism.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > you've only had this kind of recourse for the past 50 years. before that, for 5-10,000 years, money in all its forms worked just like bitcoin. To the extent its true (and, actually, money in most of its other historical forms doesn't work much like bitcoin, but yes there wasn't a widely used convenient equivalent to modern payment dispute resolution systems before credit cards), like computers and modern dentistry and all kinds of other modern developments, its not one of those things I'd like to give up having to go back to the way things used to work.
  - stevedekorte 13y ago
    Can we safely assume you never use physical cash because it doesn't support "charge backs"? Also, what do you say to the populations of the ~40 countries that credit cards don't work in because charge back requests are too common there? Do you tell them to simply never make online purchases?
- JohnTHaller 13y ago
  But it worked in person. Not over the internet to someone you will never meet in a state/country you will never visit.
- Nursie 13y ago
  And for how long have we had distance selling? In particular over the internet?

Gormo 13y ago

Whether it's good news or not depends on what your hopes for Bitcoin are. If you'd like to have an open and decentralized protocol for direct cash transactions in online commerce, then this is indeed fantastic news. But if what you want from Bitcoin is a standalone currency that's immune to political manipulation, it's not such great news: in this and other similar recent stories, Bitcoin is being used merely as a proxy for dollar transactions. If this type of transaction ended up becoming dominant, Bitcoin would effectively be pegged to the dollar, nullifying its advantages as a non-fiat currency. For Bitcoin to work as a standalone currency, there has to be a real economy with prices denominated in Bitcoin, not just a dollar-denominated economy with an instant spot exchange built into transactions.